


Love Turned to Hate

by DesertVixen



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: F/M, Love Turned To Hate, Missing Scene, Trojan War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 00:25:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11909361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: Clytemnestra introspection on her life with Agamemnon





	Love Turned to Hate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/gifts).



She had waited for this day for so long, Clytemnestra thought, as her handmaidens brushed her hair, with flowers set aside to weave in her hair. She was dressed in her finest gown, anointed with perfumes, bedecked with jewelry. 

It was her wedding day. 

She would marry Agamemnon, one of the brave young princes of Sparta. He was like a young lion, with his mane of hair flowing around a handsome face. He was a warrior, with a well-made body and the sure grace of a practiced fighter. 

But most important, he had been the man who had looked at her sister Helen – Helen the fair, Helen the celebrated beauty, Helen the prize sought after by all the princes of Greece – and instead, who had chosen her. 

“Let me.” Clytemnestra closed her eyes as their cousin Penelope took up the task of braiding her fair hair, her deft fingers moving swiftly to form a sort of braided crown atop Clytemnestra’s head. It was soothing, even as Clytemnestra realized this might be the last time she shared a moment like this with her cousin. After tonight, Clytemnestra would be a married woman, initiated in the secrets of the bedchamber, and Penelope would return to her father Icarius.

Not that what happened in the bedchamber was all that secret – they had servants after all, servants who had enjoyed sharing their favors with some of the suitors, and they had not kept many of the details to themselves. Still those details were not much without practical knowledge, and that Clytemnestra lacked. The most physical contact she had been permitted to have with Agamemnon had been when he had taken her hand in his, as her father gave his blessing to their marriage. His hand had been much larger and rougher than her own. She had tried to imagine how that hand might feel on softer skin in other places. It was, she decided, something she looked forward to discovering tonight.

“You look beautiful, Clytemnestra,” Penelope said finally, as she placed the final blossom amid the intricate braids she had fashioned. 

“Thanks to your work,” she said with a smile.

“Thanks to your happiness,” Penelope answered. “It shines in your face.”

“I am happy,” Clytemnestra said softly. “I cannot tell you how happy I am.” Happy to know that there was a man who wanted her, preferred her to Helen. 

“May you always be so happy, dear cousin.” 

*** ***

The next morning, Clytemnestra stayed in the bed long after Agamemnon had risen and left to make preparations for their voyage to Mycenae. 

Last night had lived up to the whispers of the servants. She had been warned that there would be pain and blood, that it was a needful part of the transition from maiden to wife. Clytemnestra had expected worse than the short sharp pain she had experienced for a moment, lost among the many new sensations of a man’s body against hers. His warrior’s hands had indeed been pleasant against her skin, and Clytemnestra looked forward to other nights. 

When she rose, there was a lingering tenderness, a soreness from the unaccustomed activities of the night before. Clytemnestra welcomed it, welcomed her new life as a married woman.

She was happy.

*** ***

The happiness was not fated to last. 

When she looked back, when she lay alone in the bedchamber in the middle of the night, Clytemnestra could not pinpoint exactly when her happiness ended. 

She had known that husbands were not always faithful, even if they expected their wives to be. Yet the first time she had known that Agamemnon had been with another woman, had kissed and caressed another woman the way he had kissed and caressed her, a small part of her had died. She could not let it steal her happiness . Agamemnon had chosen her, and none of these women could remove her from her place as his wife. His wife, and the mother of his children – Iphigenia, Electra, Orestes, Chrysothemis. They were her pride and joy, and she was still happy.

He was not unkind to her, but Clytemnestra knew that he did not see things the way she did. He did not understand that a woman had pride, as much as any man. So she smiled, and welcomed him when he came to her, and enjoyed his attention while not dwelling on her wounds. It was not the same as those first heady days, but she told herself that it was simply the way things were.

She was not unhappy, not all of the time. 

*** ***

It was not until Aulis that Clytemnestra hated him. When she heard that he had ordered Iphigenia to be sacrificed at Aulis, so that there would be wind to fill the sails of the ships that went to Troy for the honor of Menelaus, to retrieve the stolen Helen, she had been sure she would die of it.

Iphigenia, her eldest daughter, the first child she had held in her arms and suckled at her breast, sacrificed, a beautiful young maiden who would never again sing and dance and delight her mother’s heart. 

Perhaps if he had come home and shared her sorrow, if he had knelt with her and showed her that he grieved the loss of their first daughter, the child of their happiness, it would have been different.  
Instead, Agamemnon did his duty and sailed for Troy with the Greek fleet, leaving Clytemnestra alone with her grief and sorrow and growing hatred. She had no way of knowing what was in his heart, if he mourned their girl as much as she did, but eventually she did not care.

Eventually she hated him.

The longer he was gone, the more the hatred grew. Clytemnestra felt as if her joy had been buried with Iphigenia, as if the ritual wailing still echoed in her ears. There were no kind words to replace it, not until Aegisthus’s honeyed words and praises for her beauty and wisdom filled her ears. 

It was not the same. Clytemnestra knew that he would not have courted her if she had not been his cousin’s queen, if he had not desired to usurp his cousin’s throne and his cousin’s place. She was not foolish enough to believe his professions of love, for she knew that Aegisthus only kept her by his side to avoid trouble. She was useful to him. Clytemnestra believed that he would eventually be useful to her.

She waited for Agamemnon to come home.

She was unhappy.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! Your notes said you were okay with dysfunction (which this couple has a lot of) and I really liked the idea of the transformation her feelings might have undergone.


End file.
